


The Campaign to Lose the White House and Save America

by sybarite1



Series: Imperative [1]
Category: Fake News RPF, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (TV)
Genre: Dialogue, Gen, Humor, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10136672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybarite1/pseuds/sybarite1
Summary: “I can’t believe,” Stephen says slowly, “that you actually want me to enter the presidential race for the participation medal.”“Hey, it’s better than winning.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> The post-truth story no one deserves, least of all the very real people fictionalised within. I'm sorry.

 

 

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert - 1 March 2017

_**I’m thinking O!** is the campaign slogan proposed by Stephen Colbert for a hypothetical US presidential run by Oprah Winfrey in 2020. The slogan draws on a real, same-day interview with Oprah where she discusses the idea with David Rubenstein of Bloomberg TV. While ultimately rejecting the idea of running for president, Oprah did draw attention to the fact that the bar for presidential knowledge, experience and qualifications has been set low in Trump’s America._

 

* * *

 

The email, when it comes, just says _“I’m thinking O?”_

Stephen clicks it closed without bothering to reply. He’s seeing Jon later for drinks, probably.

 

* * *

 

“You didn’t like it?”  Stephen says by way of a hello. Jon is already in a booth, with a drink, playing up his hobo chic. There’s a baseball cap on the dark wood table. Stephen is in a suit.

Jon shrugs. “It’s Oprah. What’s not to like?”

“Then why the cryptic missive?”

“Missive?” Jon repeats. “ _Missive?_ ”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Sorry my _epistle_ left you hanging, nerd. I was just making a comment about how 2020 speculation is gonna be a total free for all.”

Stephen sips his scotch. “We live in exciting times.”

“I know. Why’d you think I moved out to the farm?”

Stephen lifts an eyebrow. Jon was on his show just a handful of nights ago. He’s here this evening; getting drinks way past a farmer’s bed time. It’s possible that Jon is not cut out for a life of rural retirement. In any case, Stephen leaves his scepticism in his eyebrow and says nothing.

Jon huffs anyway.

By mutual agreement they commit a few moments to their drinks.

After a while Jon leans conspiratorially across the table.

“I may have something of a scoop.”

Stephen sighs. He leans back so that he can make steady eye contact. “Jon,” he says patiently – even, he’d like to think – _compassionately_ , “remember how we aren’t real journalists?”

“Eh.” Jon waves. “Who is, these days?”

Well, point.

“So, my sources-”

He’s cut off by Stephen’s groan. “Please, for the love God, stop talking like one.”

“I get it, I get it,” Jon blusters, “the spark is gone. No more time for roleplay. Where’s the love, huh?”

Stephen rolls his eyes as theatrically as he can manage. “I love you, Jon.”

Jon’s grin is there and gone in a flash.

“Anyway,” he says, more seriously and more quietly, “Sanders isn’t running again.”

In January Sanders wasn’t ruling out a 2020 bid.

“What changed?” wonders Stephen.

“Health thing,” says Jon, grimacing. He gives his drink a particularly doleful look. Stephen frowns.

“Bad, huh?”

“Bad enough to need him to slow down,” says Jon. “They’ll start confirming it in a little while.” He shrugs.

They mutter a toast to Bernie and get new drinks. Stephen turns the news over in his mind. It is quite the scoop, to use Jon’s words. And he’s telling Stephen. Not that this is information for Stephen to act on – he’s never been the guy who breaks stories and thankfully that isn’t set to change. It’s information for something else entirely; information for speculation. It’s a valuable variable in the hazily projected election landscape in the run up to 2020. Everyone in D.C. is also playing this very game of conjecture. At this point it’s so early on in the race that literally the only reason to care is prurient interest.

Fortunately, prurient interest is what they do best. (That, and maybe schadenfreude).

“ _Hmm_ ,” Says Stephen, considering the implications for independents and democrats alike.

Jon _hmms_ back.

 

* * *

 

Stephen is decompressing alone in his study. No amount of bribery would ever get him to say those words out loud though, because they make him sound like a snotty, family-avoiding jerk. When your youngest kid is 16, though, the avoidance shoe is definitely on the other foot. In truth Stephen just likes to close his study door so he can pretend there are still small people playing with Legos on the other side of it, rather than the occasional assortment of quasi adults all posturing independence. (Yes, he’s counting himself in that description). He’s feeling a bit old and sorry for himself when his phone rings.

“What are you wearing?” asks Jon, instead of saying hello.

“The shame of fatherhood,” says Stephen, morosely.

“Hmm. So is that a lacey number or what?”

“It is a heavy mantle of failure and sorrow.”

“That… really doesn’t sound sexy.”

“Deadbeat dads seldom are.”

There’s a beat before they both succumb to laughing.

“Bored?” Jon sounds knowing.

“And bor- _ing_ , apparently. For I am piteous and old and my wife and children laugh at me.”

“Aren't you _supposed_ to be the funny guy?”

“Yes, except they laugh at me when I’m not trying to be funny.”

Now Jon is also laughing at him. Everything is the worst. Stephen remembers that Dame Helen Mirren kissed him once. And, also; Spiderman. The world gets a little more glow-y.

“I kissed Spiderman,” Jon is sure to hear the smug.

“I kissed a llama today,” is the rejoinder he gets. “It has a very tragic backstory but then, everything here seems to.”  Clearly Jon has been ~~traumatising~~ comforting his rescue animals again.

“Yes,” says Stephen, deliberately misunderstanding, “New Jersey is like that.”

“Guess that’s why we both live here,” sighs Jon.

They wallow in unrepentant fake self-pity.

“A hobby might be good,” says Jon, “for the incipient old-age and looming empty nest syndrome.” His voice is faux-casual laid over a live wire. Something exciting has come up. Stephen straightens in his desk chair a little.

“A hobby like…?”

“Well,” Jon sounds determinedly cheery, “you could always run for president.”

Stephen slides out of his chair and ambles over to his study entrance holding his phone. He cracks the door open a bit.

“HONEY?” he calls out, “JON WANTS TO KNOW IF I CAN GO OVER AND RUN FOR PRESIDENT?”

“NOPE, SORRY!” Evie calls back, “MAYBE NEXT ELECTION CYCLE!”

“OK THEN! I LOVE YOU!” he shouts back, and pushes the door closed.

“Well,” he says to Jon, dropping back into his chair, “you have your answer.”

Jon chuckles and Stephen chuckles too. He reckons this is probably to do with an election sketch idea that Jon’s cooking up, maybe a recurring character in the 2020 build-up. He waits to hear about it but gets nothing except a painful little pause.

“I’m serious though,” Jon finally says. It occurs to Stephen that having actors as friends comes with its own set of problems because Jon does actually sound quite serious. It’s impossible to tell if he’s faking it or not.

“Oh God,” Stephen says a bit faintly.

“What?”

“I’m too old to remember if being Punk’d is still a thing.”

“You are not being Punk’d, you idiot,” now he can hear Jon’s smile. The forced sombre tone is leeching out of his voice.

“We spend half our time laughing at people who ask us if we’re running for public office.”

“Those people are stupid,” Jon isn’t mincing his words, “we are not stupid. Do you want to be the president?”

Stephen shudders. “God no.” he says fervently.

“See? Smart,” says Jon. “No offense, but I don’t want you to be president either.”

“Thanks, none taken.” Stephen knows Jon is a good buddy. Good buddies don’t wish presidencies on each other.

“I just want you to _run_ for president.”

Wait. Scratch that thing about the buddies. Stephen feels his jaw clench.

“So you want me to run for president and _lose?_ ”

“It would be very heroic?” Jon offers in a small voice.

Stephen hangs up on him.

 

* * *

 

Two days later Jon gets a voicemail from Stephen:

_“_ _You spoke to my WIFE?!”_ Stephen hisses into the phone, before some audibly deep breaths that do nothing to calm him. _“Are you MAD?! Is this some kind of midlife crisis?! Because to be honest I thought BECOMING A FARMER was the midlife crisis! I hope you’ve just been drinking in front of the West Wing reruns again and haven’t actually snapped. Call Evelyn back and undo whatever it is you did that’s making her so supportive of my NONEXISTENT PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS! I am not kidding, Jon. I will kill your llama.”_

 

* * *

 

Jon probably knows that Stephen isn’t going to go all _The Godfather_ on his llama but he clearly also doesn’t want to mess with someone who learnt how to make threats in the Deep South. As soon as he can, he comes over to Stephen’s house and shuts them both up in Stephen’s study.

“So.”

“So.”

Stephen crosses his arms and raises his eyebrow. Jon is jittery.

“Look. Can I just say my piece all in one go and then you can shoot holes in it?”

“You want to _monologue?_ ”

“You do it all the time!”

“On _television_.” Stephen looks around the study to convey how very much this was real life. _His_ real life, thank you very much.

“Just sit down.”  Jon flaps his hand at an armchair until Stephen goes to sit.

 

* * *

  

“I don’t trust the democrats,” is Jon’s opening salvo. Stephen nods because this makes sense given the party's current state of confusion.

“I don’t trust the republicans,” says Jon. Well, who could anymore?

“I also don’t trust any potential independents springing up in Bernie’s place,” continues Jon.

Stephen puts his hand up.

“What about Harambe?” he asks Jon.

“I don’t trust Harambe.”

Stephen gasps.

“To be honest,” says Jon, “I don’t even trust Deez Nutz. If he’s jaded enough to run for office at 15, how Machiavellian will he be by 2020? Anyway, the minimum age for being president is 35. It’s set up that way so you can practice at all the legal drinking first. He’s still got a ways to go and something tells me he's gonna need that practice. Finally? I’m not going to say anything about Jill Stein – unlike Bernie she can’t even win in her own state.”

Stephen put his hand up again.

“Yes, Stephen.”

“And the Greens were trounced by the Libertarians which is just…”

Jon shudders. “Which… yeah.” Stephen and Jon look at each other.

“So. We don’t trust anyone. _And_ it’s obvious that the political money and machinery behind the republicans and the democrats means that this is gonna be their show no matter what. Wow – _just like the last couple hundred years!_ – but they’re afraid of _you_ , Stephen.”

Stephen considers it, and considers denying it, but there’s no point. He and Jon really are obscenely popular, do hold public sway and get massive amounts of media attention. They can be dangerous when they want to be. Luckily for everyone, comedians don’t often want to be dangerous, even prickly ones like them.

“They’re afraid of you, too,” he says instead. If anything, public representatives are _far_   _more_ afraid of Jon than Stephen.

“Ok, fine. But I’m a New York City socialist vegan Jew.”

“Hey the Senator for Vermont-”

“I’m _not_ a Senator though. Also, I’m short.”

Stephen scratches his chin.

“You know, you’re right. I actually think you might be shorter than Sanders.”

“Shut up,” Jon snaps, “anyway… um… anyway my point is that you should run, just long enough to force the two big parties to put forward their best candidates. People who are smart, experienced and trustworthy. They know you’d just publicly rip them apart if they didn’t. When it’s late enough in the race that voters start returning to their partisan folds to elect nominees, at least you’d have weeded out the weakest and weirdest. And then you can gracefully withdraw.”

Stephen snorts.

“I wouldn’t be a threat. I’d be dead in the water from day one if that’s the plan. Why would anyone support a candidate who might not even stick around ‘til election day?”

“Ah. Well. You’d have to promise voters that you’ll stay on the ballot if they’re unhappy with their party’s nominee. It’ll never come to that; the polling evidence is incontrovertible; voters come home to their parties. But it’ll send the parties into a froth anyway, and give voters a good reason to support you until you endorse the better candidate when you withdraw. You’d be like a failsafe; a democracy failsafe!”

Jon’s grinning toothily.

“C’mon,” he cajoles, “these assholes deserve it.”

“Maybe they do. But _I_ don’t deserve it. I’m a talk show host, Jon, not a politician. And I don’t want my family to hate me, either.” Privately Stephen reckons that lifetime therapy for three kids is bound to be expensive.

“Listen to you!” Jon beams, “So earnest! You already sound better than any career politician out there. I actually did notice that you’re a talk show host Stephen, but the guy from _The Apprentice_ is currently the 45th President of the United States of America.” He spreads his arms wide. “It’s a brave new world. And anyway, Evelyn’s on my side now that she knows it’s actually about causing shit and gypping the system. She’s, uh, kind of gleeful about it.”

“Well, you know politicians: they bring out the crazy revolutionary in all of us. Especially the women.”

“Don’t I know it,” mutters Jon, possibly thinking about Tracey or maybe just remembering the Women’s March. “Also? I don’t think you’ve fully considered how this might be good for your soul.”

“Oh?”

“Well, if he somehow finagles the nomination a second time, Stephen… You could be squaring off against _Donald Trump_.”

Stephen stills. _Motherfucker_. His mind is already trying to imagine the absolute farce of debating Donald with his gloves off, for all America to see. It would be realer comedy than he’s ever been able to perform, and _God_ , he’d _destroy_ him. Can brains get erections? Because he thinks his brain might have one right now. Or perhaps that’s just his ego swelling.

“Eh? Eh?” Jon is nodding encouragingly. “At least that part would be fun. You’d have to call him Fuckface Von Clownstick for me, though.”

“You’re ridiculous. And I think you’d have to say _Mr._ Von Clownstick on a live televised debate.”

Stephen gets up and pours Jon a drink because he’s been talking for a while. Then he pours himself a drink because his friend is a crazy person. They both sit and sip for a few beats.

“I can’t believe,” Stephen says slowly, “that you actually want me to enter the presidential race for the participation medal.”

“Hey, it’s better than winning.”

Stephen supposes that’s certainly true.

“Now,” says Jon, looking a little manic, “you heard my pitch. Do you want to hear my plan?”

“ _Your_ plan?”

“Hey buddy,” Jon’s hands are expressive enough that his drink sloshes alarmingly as he waves it in the space between him and Stephen, “If you wanna get involved here; be my guest.” 

 

* * *

 

fin.

 

**Author's Note:**

> What is and isn't real:
> 
> I’m thinking O! is real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf1PbKKWToE&index=4&list=PLiZxWe0ejyv_tI5isfKv5EpUNfmlIU1aQ
> 
> Jon really was on Stephen’s show just a few days before the I’m thinking O! slot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmdFne7LnuA
> 
> Bernie is fine, so far as I know! He would neither confirm nor deny a 2020 when asked at a CNN Town Hall event this January: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/09/politics/vermont-senator-bernie-sanders-most-memorable-lines-town-hall/
> 
> While the llama is pure conjecture, Jon and his wife Tracey are vegans and really do live on a farm for rescued animals: http://www.upworthy.com/jon-stewarts-beautiful-12-acre-farm-is-now-a-safe-haven-for-abused-animals
> 
> Stephen has been smooched on air at the Late Show by Dame Helen Mirren, Sally Field, Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels and Andrew Garfield
> 
> Jon mentions his height because studies show that taller men are more likely to be appointed to leadership positions: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/oct/18/voters-tall-politicians-leadership
> 
> The Women’s March official website: https://www.womensmarch.com/
> 
> Jon Stewart’s Fuckface Von Clownstick twitter war with Donald Trump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEEgplXwNWk


End file.
